Giants` Williams Pulls Punches

Matt Williams hit just .202 for the San Francisco Giants last season, so more than a few eyebrows went up when Williams ripped off 13 hits over a span of 17 at-bats this spring.

Perhaps the most interesting part is that none of the hits was a home run. Williams hit 26 with Triple-A Phoenix and 18 with the Giants last season, a total second only to teammate Kevin Mitchell in professional baseball.

What`s the difference this year?

``He`s hitting breaking balls,`` manager Roger Craig said. ``He`s hitting balls down and away that he used to have so much trouble with. He`s hitting good pitches, and when pitchers make a mistake, he hits it hard.``

``I`ve shortened up and stopped swinging so hard,`` Williams said. ``In certain situations, I`ll still look to drive the ball. But I came to the conclusion that I was using too much body and pulling my head.``

Too bad Williams didn`t have that attitude last year in the playoffs, when he hit a game-winning homer off the Cubs` Steve Wilson in Game 4.

- Nolan Ryan has the most strikeouts in baseball history, 5,076. But he`s also in the top 20 of five other significant all-time stat lists.

His 3.15 earned run average is 18th best among pitchers with a minimum of 3,000 innings. The best is Walter Johnson`s 2.37. He has pitched 4,786 1/3 innings, 12th most. Cy Young leads with 7,377. He has started 676 games, eighth most and 142 behind Young`s record. His 289 victories put him 20th on the list. Young has the most at 511. His 57 shutouts tie him for 12th all time, 53 behind Johnson`s record.

Ryan, by the way, was one of four New York Mets sent to California for future White Sox manager Jim Fregosi in 1971.

- Mitch Webster will start for Cleveland in center field on Opening Day, but don`t expect him to be the regular all season. He`ll probably end up splitting time with Dion James, who is out with a pulled hamstring.

- Former Cub Paul Kilgus won a job as No. 4 starter at Toronto. For a time, sources say, there was doubt he would even make the club, and there`s still a chance he won`t survive when rosters are trimmed later this month. Kilgus, a flop as a Cub, was traded to the Blue Jays in the off-season for Edwin Nunez. - Bob Ojeda didn`t hold back when told the Mets, who are almost obscenely rich with starting pitching, were putting him in the bullpen.

``I`m devastated,`` Ojeda said. ``It`s a right cross to the jaw. I would seriously rather go somewhere else and start.``

On the other hand: ``As a member of the team, I`ll do whatever I`m asked.``

- Dave Gallagher has his Stride-Tutor. Toronto hitting coach Gene Tenace may be on to something else.

Tenace decided third baseman Kelly Gruber was lunging in the box. So when it was time for Gruber to hit in the cage, Tenace rigged a belt around Gruber`s waist with a line attached. Each time Gruber swung, Tenace yanked Gruber back into position.

``It was terrific,`` Gruber said. ``In about two minutes, I felt like I had my stroke back. I`d like to work with it some more.``

Tenace said he had used it to help hitters in the minor leagues.

``There`s a few more hitters up here I`m going to try it on,`` Tenace said.

- With a .305 batting average, 21 homers and 95 runs batted in last year, Alvin Davis only cemented his reputation as the best hitter in the brief, inglorious history of the Seattle Mariners. But it didn`t prevent the club from bumping him from first base when it signed free agent Pete O`Brien this winter.

``I went through a process of anger at first, kind of disbelief and a numb phase,`` said Davis, the 1984 American League Rookie of the Year.

His reaction hasn`t played well back in Seattle, where he`s being portrayed as anxious to leave. ``They seemed to paint the picture I`m out here grumbling and going through the motions,`` Davis said. ``That`s not true. I had some things planned for myself as far as my career was concerned, but sometimes you have to make adjustments. Life is not always going to hand you the same hand you think you are going to get.``

Purists look down on Davis` new DH job, but Seattle manager Jim Lefebvre says he`s still the club`s most important player. ``Alvin Davis is one of the top hitters in baseball, and in many ways the guy we`ve built things around here.``

Swindell, 13-6 with a 3.37 earned run average for the sixth-place Indians last year, has had a brutal spring. Perhaps the worst outing of his life came last week against San Francisco in Scottsdale, Ariz., when the Giants pounded him for 11 runs on 10 hits and 3 walks in just 1 1/3 innings. He retired five of 18 batters.

Seeing that, the Indians left him behind to pitch a minor-league game on Sunday. He`ll fly to Cleveland to rejoin the club for Monday`s opener.

- Two of the week`s best lines were launched by Milwaukee General Manager Harry Dalton. He said his injury-riddled team has an ``All-Scar infield`` and a ``Venus de Milo`` infield. No arms, get it?

- Oakland`s Rickey Henderson is promising to break Lou Brock`s lifetime stolen base record. Henderson has 871 career steals, 67 short of Brock`s mark. Henderson should pass Ty Cobb`s American League record of 892 in May or early June.